


Agents of Hope

by cassandor



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Queen's Shadow, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Pre-Canon, Pre-Rogue One
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: The rearing of spies is a fair bit easier if the sort-of-grownups of the not-yet-Rebel Alliance have already done this before.Only a little bit, because tired little boys from Fest don't have much in common with Princesses.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Breha Organa & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Sabé, Padmé Amidala & Sabé, Sabé/Tonra (Star Wars)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	Agents of Hope

Like a jewel pinning back dark hair, the blue-green planet glitters in the vastness of space. 

Alderaan. The untrained eye might mistake it for Naboo. Sabé, of all people, would never make that mistake. The blues of Naboo were deeper, richer, and took up more of the planet's surface. Her homeworld has no prominent swathes of white, none of the mountain chains characteristic to Alderaan. 

Still, Sabé can't help but think of home when Alderaan appears in the viewport. The weeks since she'd departed Naboo feel like a lifetime. It doesn't take that long to reach Alderaan on a direct flight, but current circumstances demanded a longer, more complicated route. These circumstances, Sabé figures, will continue for the rest of her life. 

Thinking about everything that occurred before Bail Organa first commed her feels as though she's looking through gauzy window curtains, squinting at blurred shadows obscuring her view of the light. She can do nothing except ruminate over the past and conjure possibilities where she was able to hold back the curtain of death from falling on the woman for whom she'd opened curtains for in Naboo's early mornings. But no matter where her mind went, Sabé was pulled back to the inevitable conclusion that reality offers her. 

Padmé Amidala is dead.

Sabé had been undercover on Padmé's order and had kept herself away from her for the latter's own safety. Yet despite Sabé's best intentions, Padmé's life was snatched away far, far, too soon. Sabé didn't think she'd ever have a future without Padmé, not when their fates and identities were so intertwined. Two little girls once giggled about growing old on the shores of Naboo. One young woman once pledged her life for the other. Contrary to what Naboo's epics would have one to believe, neither of these promises came true. 

Sabé's flirted, briefly, with the notion of her own hair free to tangle in flowers, her clothes drenched in ripples of Naboo blue. She'd be half the ghost Padmé was. It made sense. She was her shadow, after all. 

But now she has someone else to protect.

Beside her, Tonra stirs, just as their ship begins its landing cycle. They're on a commuter vessel, filled with beings of all species. Some sleep like Tonra had, others work at datapads or murmur among themselves. Overall, the experience is quiet and unremarkable, much unlike some of the transports they'd taken out of the Mid Rim.

"You ready?" Tonra asks, voice low in Sabé's ear. She nods, then reaches for the scandocs she'd prepared for them. Alderaan is known across the galaxy as a bastion of hope, its arms open to all those fleeing the destruction caused by the Clone Wars. The war which, according to the Emperor, was now over. From what Sabé has seen on this journey, she knows better. 

Rules have changed rapidly in the age of the Empire, even on a peaceful planet like Alderaan. 

Sabé sighs. The time for thinking about the past was over. The aftermath of her mistress' death left Sabé scrambling for purchase on the icy path that was grief. One misstep and she'd be sliding into darkness. But Bail Organa has offered her a handhold. And she will hold onto it for the rest of her life.

It's unhealthy, she knows and she's been told as much, to cling so desperately to other people. But few in the galaxy understood the bond between Naboo's Queen and her handmaidens. And only two understood the bond between Padmé and Sabé. Padmé wasn't just a body to protect, nor was she merely a friend. Padmé was Queen Amidala long after she renounced the title, and Sabé had renounced everything, including her name, to protect her. And not just out of duty.

Padmé was everything good in the galaxy and in Sabé's life. When Padmé died, she took both the Republic and Sabé's ability to smile with her. 

Until now. 

Sabé smiles as Breha Organa enters the room, several hours after their arrival on Alderaan. She rises for the Queen of Alderaan, only sitting when Breha motions for her to do so. Sabé pulls her skirts out from under her before taking a seat on the bench. The action comes naturally to her, a muscle memory left untouched even though it's been many years since she'd worn such fine clothing. Even longer since she's sat with royalty - beside her, on the bench, as if they were equals. Like girls not yet fully aware of the disparity in their titles, women who had grown to love beyond them.

Bail was not explicit with his instructions to her. "Before we move ahead," he had said, his holo wavering in the dim light of Sabé's quarters, "there is someone I would like you to meet." 

And here is their introduction, swaddled in blankets softer than the clouds floating above Aldera's skyscrapers. Leia gurgles, and reaches one stubby hand out of her cocoon of warmth. Sabé takes it, ever so gently, and the little princess grasps one callused finger with her fist. 

"She trusts you." Breha's smile shines with motherly pride. So much darkness swirls in the galaxy around them, but the bright blue of Alderaan's sky renders it all but invisible. 

"I will do everything in my power to keep that trust." Sabé says, her eyes fixed on Leia's. Brown, like Padmé's. The definition of her life even now, beyond death. "Everything." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this since I read Queen's Shadow last year. There's more to come (I just posted this in a hurry because EKJ keeps tweeting plot points I already had written.)


End file.
